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Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Marrakesh Express"

Happy Birthday Graham Nash. Graham wrote " Marrakesh Express" the last year he was in the Hollies. But his bandmates didn't think the song commercial enough, so they never released it. He held onto the song and recorded it with his new group, Crosby, Stills and Nash and they included it on their 1st album. The 1st live performance of the song was at Woodstock.

In an interview, he talked about the inspiration behind it;

Inspiration for the song occurring during a Moroccan vacation he took in 1966. On the trip, Nash traveled by train from Casablanca to Marrakesh. (Whether this was an express train, he did not specify.) He began the journey in First Class, surrounded by people he found to be uninteresting—as he described it, they were all "ladies with blue hair." Upon this observation, he decided the compartment was "completely f*****g boring," so left his seat to explore the other train carriages. He was fascinated by what he saw.The song mentions "ducks and pigs and chickens," and that, according to Nash, is actually what was there. He recalled the ride by commenting: "It's literally the song as it is--what happened to me".

Here is a demo he cut at Abbey Road Studios in April of 68 while still in the Hollies..